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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24670774">Inevitability</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/pseuds/bookwyrmling'>bookwyrmling</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Check Please! (Webcomic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - xxxHOLIC, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coma, Grief/Mourning, Kent Parson takes the Bargaining Stage a bit literally, M/M, Memory Loss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:48:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,899</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24670774</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/pseuds/bookwyrmling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a shop in Las Vegas that only those who need it can find.</p>
<p>Kent Parson finds it one hot summer night in 2009. Jack Zimmermann finds it 7 years later.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>OMGCP Reverse Bang 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Inevitability</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic was written for the 2020 OMGCP Reverse Bang for <a href="https://faiasakura.tumblr.com/post/620672115678527488/pimms-wish-shop">this</a> wonderful imageboard made by FaiaSakura! Please check it out and shower her with all the love for this gorgeous art and WONDERFUL idea!!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p>“Doing anything differently to prepare for your upcoming game against the Providence Falconers and Jack Zimmermann?”</p>
<p>Jack could see Kent bite back the rolled eyes he used to give so frequently in the Q at the reporter’s question and frowned.</p>
<p>“Zimmermann has obviously made an impact,” Kent said, instead, “but, you know, we prepare for teams. We’re gonna watch our tape and play our game. It’s just another one in the 82.”</p>
<p>The scrum feed cut back to the commentators and Jack reached for the remote, turning the television off. He’d watched the game and he’d be watching film on it tomorrow. He didn’t need a breakdown from one retired player and a few others with limited experience being out on the ice.</p>
<p>He did need a distraction, though, so with a sigh, he reached right back out and turned the television back on. They were talking about the Parse and Zimms reunion and what to expect in the upcoming game.</p>
<p>“Why you watch this shit?” Tater asked as he wandered back in from the kitchen around a bite of pie straight out of the tin he was holding. He’d have to thank Bitty for the pie later. Tell him Tater enjoyed it. Maybe he’d make two next time so Jack would get more than one slice. “I tell you what to expect,” he continued between bites of pie, “Parson is rat. Parson will be rat in game. Falcon eats rat, though, so all is okay.”</p>
<p>Jack snorted.</p>
<p>He changed the channel. “Thanks, Tater.”</p>
<p>“Will say anything for pie,” Tater teased as he joined Jack on the sofa. He set the tin down on the coffee table and held out a second fork.</p>
<p>“At least you show some respect for whose pie this is,” he ribbed as he took the offered utensil and dug into the other side of the last quarter in the tin.</p>
<p>They ate a few bites in silence as the sitcom on the screen played a laugh track.</p>
<p>“You are ready for game, yes?” Tater asked tentatively.</p>
<p>Jack sucked in a breath and then let it out slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t reach out to him and he didn’t reach out to me after. That’s all it is,” he explained. “Sometimes friends don’t stay friends.” It was a terrifying thought to him, still, but he’d work hard to make sure his current friendships didn’t go that way.</p>
<p>“Besides,” he added, not quite as an afterthought, “That was six years ago.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>When Kent was younger, his mother had brought back a puzzle of the New York City skyline from a yard sale. It was one of those puzzles made for adults with thousands of tiny pieces of the sky alone. They would sit down after dinner, his parents and his siblings and him, and work on it together for an hour.</p>
<p>Even if the family got stuck or Kent got bored, the promise was for an hour, so he would sit there with everyone else and put random pieces together to see if anything stuck. It was on the fifth day, as they were done with most of the puzzle, that they hit a hiccup. No matter which piece they tried, they couldn’t seem to find the final piece for the Brooklyn bridge.</p>
<p>They checked each pile, separated by sky and building and water. They checked the sofa, pulling and tossing cushions aside. They checked the floor and their pockets and the corners of the puzzle box to see if they could find it.</p>
<p>Kent thought he found it in his sock the next morning. The shape seemed right, but when he tried to put it in, there were visible spaces and the patterns never aligned. Leaving it there was even worse than leaving the spot unfilled. At least, while the puzzle was incomplete, they might still find the missing piece.</p>
<p>Kent’s face stung from the slap, but he ignored it as he watched Analia stomp off. They were out on the street, having just finished what Kent knew going into the night would be their last dinner together. He’d never gotten better at this part of a relationship.</p>
<p>Twenty years ago, he’d broken that mismatched puzzle piece when he’d tried to rip it out too fast in frustration.</p>
<p>They’d never found the other piece, either.</p>
<p>Kent thinks about that sometimes when he can’t help but notice the gaps and incongruous patterns in his own life.</p>
<hr/>
<p>When Jack woke up in the hospital, he didn’t remember the overdose at all. It had been thirteen weeks. He’d missed the draft and the fallout. His parents don’t see it as much of an issue despite his self-loathing and despair. He yells at everyone, them included, and, even that, they take without censure.</p>
<p>Jack finds out later that he almost hadn’t woken up. He finds out later, his parents had agreed to pull the plug.</p>
<p>It takes a lot of therapy on his own and as a family to integrate that fact into their fractured relationship and Jack still sees the guilt on their shoulders every so often, still feels an infrequent betrayal in his heart.</p>
<p>But they heal and Jack coaches hockey and tries to determine what the rest of his life is supposed to look like now.</p>
<p>He tries calling Kent once, when his first offer comes in his senior year of college. He’s not sure why he does it; they haven’t talked since before the draft. They were best friends and teammates, they were the C and the A. They aren’t anything now.</p>
<p>Sometimes Jack wonders: if Kent had picked up, would they have been able to heal, too?</p>
<hr/>
<p>“Jack’s breathing on his own. We wanted to tell you. The doctors say it’s a miracle.”</p>
<p>“That’s great to hear. I’m sure everyone else from the team will be glad to hear, too,” Kent replied as Alicia Zimmermann updated him on Jack’s wellbeing. He heard his name called and looked up from his cubby. “I gotta go. There’s a team meeting.”</p>
<p>He hung up quickly but before he could toss his phone aside he gave it a confused look.</p>
<p>“Parser! Hurry it up!”</p>
<p>Kent jumped and quickly silenced his phone, shoving it deep into his bag. “Yes, Coach!” His voice cracked and he froze as everyone suddenly turned to look at him.</p>
<p>“Parser, you okay?” Scrappy asked from next to him.</p>
<p>“I don’t…” Kent began as he brought a hand up to his face to wipe the tears away. “Why?”</p>
<p>“I’m taking Parser aside, Coach,” Jeff said as he stepped in, throwing a shoulder of Kent’s hunched shoulders and leading him out of the dressing room.</p>
<p>“I don’t know why I’m crying,” he said as he continued to wipe his tears away.</p>
<p>“What was the call about? Is it a family emergency?”</p>
<p>Kent was Jeff’s rookie. He and his wife had been the ones to house Kent over summer for prospect camp and to get him settled in and connected with the team before rookie camp. If Kent opened up to anyone about what was going on, it would be Jeff.</p>
<p>“The Zimmermanns…” he explained, “Jack finally woke up. They must be calling everyone on the team.”</p>
<p>“Well, you must be pretty relieved,” Jeff said with a happy grin. “You were pretty torn up when you first got here, after all.”</p>
<p>Kent hummed in confusion as he continued to scrub at his eyes. “Why would I be?” he asked in frustration. “We barely knew each other.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>It had been different, seeing him live and in-person for the first time since, well, since.</p>
<p>Memories had threatened to overwhelm as he watched Kent joke around with his teammates during warm-up the way he once had with everyone in Rimouski, but they had been shortly followed by a numbing effect. The recognition of a gaping hole suddenly being covered up. Jack knew it was there, he just didn’t know why, or why it should matter.</p>
<p>Parson sent him a nod from across the ice before moving on and it kicked at the covering.</p>
<p>“You good, Jack?” Marty asked as he skated up next to him.</p>
<p>Jack stepped away from the hole and the center line he’d been watching from, waiting to see if Kent would skate up to talk from the other side, nudge at his elbow like when Canada and America had played each other in the World Junior Championship. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen as Kent fell into deep discussion with the coaches at the bench. “Let’s win this,” Jack said with a competitive smirk as he jostled Marty's shoulder, instead.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Major Juniors was a formative time in almost every hockey player’s life. It’s what taught you how to be a hockey player and that didn’t just mean on the ice. You were living in and playing for a team separate from your hometown and family. You worked in and with the community and learned how to play golf and how to chat with supporters while playing golf. There were lessons on nutrition and macros and media presentation that were just as important as the drills coach had just run you through.</p>
<p>Team members were sent back down or traded to other teams and new faces took their place. You learned fast how to fold someone new into the pack in the dressing room or the whole team suffered for it on the ice.</p>
<p>There was a lot from juniors that stuck with you your whole life and friendships were usually a part of that. There were a few guys Kent kept in touch with, after all. Carrie was playing in Florida. Kent and Shay got together for dinner every so often because he played for the Kings and LA was an easy day trip. Berger was still in the AHL. He and Kent didn’t talk, but they had enough shared friends to stay on each others’ peripheries.</p>
<p>But with all of those guys and the pranks and antics they’d gotten in together, Kent had never understood why the media was so focused on him and Jack Zimmermann. Kent barely even remembered the guy and, even then, he was pretty sure it was more remembering the pictures that got brought out every so often whenever Zimmermann made the national news stage.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“A bit far from the guest dressing room, don’t you think, Zimmermann?”</p>
<p>Jack looked up from where he was leaning against the white and black cinderblocks that made the hall outside of the Aces’ home dressing room. Owen Troy raised an eyebrow at him as a few of the other players passed by. Kent Parson wasn’t among the crowd.</p>
<p>“I wanted to check on Parson.”</p>
<p>The dressing room door opened again and Luca Scapelli came out.</p>
<p>“He’s with trainers,” Troy said, arms crossed in front of his chest. “Jeff has Thirdy’s number, so we’ll send an update when we have it.”</p>
<p>“Protocol?” Jack asked in concern, remembering the way his head had slid into the wall after Tater had—accidentally, he swore up and down—tripped him.</p>
<p>“Like I’d tell you.”</p>
<p>Unlike the few other guys, Scapelli did not just pass them by. Instead, he joined Troy, stopping right behind him but, despite his size and bulk being larger than Troy’s, he looked far less ready for a fight, verbal or otherwise.</p>
<p>“I got this, Troy,” he said, instead, giving him a gentle push. “I’ve been wanting to talk with you since 2009,” he said next to Jack. “Kent will be a while and you have time. Get some coffee with me.”</p>
<p>“It’s almost midnight,” Jack pointed out.</p>
<p>Scapelli shrugged as he began to box Jack down the hall. “So get decaf.”</p>
<p>Neither said another word until they sat in Scapelli’s car in a McDonald’s parking lot after hitting up the drive-thru for cheap burgers, greasy fries and scalding decaf coffee.</p>
<p>“I didn’t really meet him as a future team member until prospect camp. I went late in the first round. But he was a known mess with the team by the time camp ended,” Scapelli said. “Then, when I came back for rookie camp, he was completely different. I wasn’t there when it happened, but Jeff, who was housing him, said he went out a mess one night and woke up the next day like a completely different person. It was like you completely disappeared from his memory.”</p>
<p>Jack clenched onto his coffee cup to keep from dropping it.</p>
<p>“I don’t mean like he got over it or moved on. I mean it was like you were completely wiped from his brain.” Scapelli unwrapped a burger and bit into it before holding another one out to Jack. “Parser’s the smart one. I can’t even begin to guess at what happened. But none of the team that was around at the time gets it. None of us know what to do with it. Zimms and Parse? Everyone knew about them. Even me and I played in the O. But he doesn’t. I don’t know if he took some weird hit to the head or drank too much one night or if it’s some weird trauma shit I don’t know anything about, but everything about you is a big blank spot. And yet there’s gotta be something there because when your mom called to say you’d woken up, even when he didn’t know why she would call him, he started crying. In the middle of the dressing room. He picked up the phone call when we were about to have a team meeting and then he cried for someone he claimed not to know.”</p>
<p>Jack couldn’t say if he ate the burger Scapelli handed him. Or how he ended up on some Vegas street with a full cup of cooling decaf coffee in his hand, but when his gaze caught on a bright neon sign in a lit window, he couldn’t seem to stop his feet from taking him up the stairs and through the door.</p>
<p>A bell rang over his head.</p>
<p>“Welcome,” a voice was quick to call out.</p>
<hr/>
<p>There is a shop in Las Vegas that only those who need it can find. It’s situated on the outskirts of Las Vegas proper, where city turns to suburb. Where the streets still have four lanes and a stoplight at each intersection but the streetlights begin to space out further. Where houses line the roads instead of skyscrapers, some holding families and some holding businesses. The in-between is a perfect place to hide behind a lit neon palm reading sign that hasn’t moved or turned off in years.</p>
<p>There is a bell that rings cheerily when you step inside and a man with a knowing grin greets each customer from between aisles and shelves packed with knick knacks and antiques that range anywhere from obvious toy to knock-off to bona fide work of art.</p>
<p>The thing is, only those who need the store can find it, but those who find it are rarely ever looking for it.</p>
<p>Kent stumbles inside one hot summer night shortly after moving to the desert city, blinking, confused and crying, his heart heavy with guilt and shattering with each breath he takes.</p>
<p>He wakes up the next morning with a smile on his face and a hole in his heart and no memory of the blue house or the man inside.</p>
<p>It’s not the only thing he forgets.</p>
<hr/>
<p>There were lots of pictures of Jack and Kent on the internet. Jack had even more saved to a USB drive that he hadn’t touched in years save for moving it from home to dorm to Haus to apartment. He remembered most of them, but not all. Some lost to the haze of alcohol and pills from his self-medication, yes, but most simply lost to normalcy. A selfie of the two of them smiling at the camera, Jack’s arm around Kenny’s shoulders. They looked about to laugh. Jack didn’t know why. One of them probably said something; some observation or inside joke. Jack couldn’t begin to tell you what it might be. They’d had a lot of those.</p>
<p>There were moments he didn’t have pictures of, too. Moments stolen in the back of his car or in their shared hotel room. Moments where Jack’s arm was around more than Kenny’s shoulder. It was only ever quick and messy, but it was good. Despite the feeling that something was missing when he did think back on those times, Jack at least knew that it was good.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“I’m sorry, Kenny, but we’ve already spoken with the doctors and made our decision. Jack wouldn’t want to remain like this and...and there are people he can help right now. A date hasn’t been set yet, but with your rookie camp starting soon, we thought you might want to schedule a flight out to say goodbye.”</p>
<p>Alicia hadn’t even given him a chance to get a word in edgewise.</p>
<p>Kent’s sneaker scuffed the dirty sidewalk as he kept walking, cap brim pulled low over his face and hands jammed deep into his pocket. He lost count as the words repeated themselves in his brain again so he began counting the cracks in the sidewalk all over again, trying to drown out the call playing on repeat in his head.</p>
<p>He didn’t know where he was anymore, didn’t care to look up to find out, either. All he could do was picture Jack the way he’d last seen him, hooked up to machines, unable to even breathe for himself. The ventilator’s breath had been loud, but it had been an inhale and exhale Kent could measure.</p>
<p>And now it was going to stop. And there was nothing Kent could do about it.</p>
<p>He ground his jaw and took a sharp turn, stomping up the stairs and then jerking open the door.</p>
<p>He hadn’t even realized what he’d done until he heard the bell ding overhead.</p>
<p>He blinked and looked up in surprise as he found himself in a cluttered mess of what appeared to be an antique shop. Looking back out the open door, he could see out onto the busy Vegas street, lit up at night.</p>
<p>Footsteps came from the back of the store and Kent turned just in time to see a man greet him with a smile. “Welcome. Do come in.”</p>
<p>As if it was a suggestion, not a command, Kent closed the door behind him then frowned in confusion as he looked at the store once again. “Sorry, I…” he began, then tilted his head to the side. “I’m not sure why I came in here?”</p>
<p>“That’s the case for most people who find their way to my store,” the man said with a toothy grin.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but I should probably go. I didn’t bring my wallet with me, so I wouldn’t want to waste your time,” Kent balked nervously and turned back to the door.</p>
<p>“A wallet is rarely useful in my store,” the man pressed as smoothly as ever. “Come in and have a seat and talk with me. After all, you have a wish and this shop grants wishes.”</p>
<p>“Look, bro,” Kent said, but the shopkeeper was already walking towards the back of the store. Kent followed and continued, “I’m not some out-of-towner who lost their money at Blackjack or at a club. I definitely am not looking for an escort or drugs. I live here. You don’t need to pull that Vegas is a Magical Place bullshit with me. I just got some bad news and got lost while taking a walk is all.”</p>
<p>At the back of the shop, the clutter was cleared out of the center just enough for a table and two chairs. The shopkeeper opened a mini fridge inside an antique cabinet and pulled out a water bottle before tossing it to him. “Drink up, then. It’s still pretty hot out there.”</p>
<p>Kent frowned at the guy but cracked open the seal and took a swig anyway, downing almost the entire bottle in one go. He was thirsty, apparently. He hadn’t realized that until just now. “Thanks.”</p>
<p>“The cost of that is talking with me,” the guy said. “This shop does actually grant wishes for equal cost. The fact that you even stepped inside means that you have a wish you would like granted. Our meeting was inevitable.”</p>
<p>Kent huffed in annoyance, but then thought about it. About telling someone who didn’t know and didn’t care. Some of the team had really latched onto the rumors that it’d been a coke overdose and had been telling Kent he was good not to get involved with that anymore. He didn’t want their judgment or their pity about this now, too.</p>
<p>But that was assuming this guy was, indeed, someone who didn’t know or care.</p>
<p>“You watch sports?” he asked.</p>
<p>The guy shrugged. “Some. I don’t pay too much attention, though.”</p>
<p>“You work for the media?”</p>
<p>“I work for this store.”</p>
<p>Kent chewed on his bottom lip before nodding and taking a seat. “This is off the record, okay?”</p>
<p>The man’s smile sharpened as he pulled out his phone and turned it off. “I take client confidentiality very seriously.”</p>
<p>He sat and held Kent’s eye contact and it was like a string hooked on to the first word and pulled each subsequent word out after it, without fail, until their inevitable conclusion.</p>
<p>He spoke of Jack: his teammate, his liney, his captain, his best friend and maybe something more they’d never really defined because it was safer that way.</p>
<p>He spoke of hockey: an outlet, a future, a battle, a trap that seemed to slowly close in on Jack more and more as the draft drew closer.</p>
<p>He spoke of parties and alcohol and pot and pills. The pills hadn’t been his. They’d been Jack’s and he’d hoarded them close to his chest.</p>
<p>“I didn’t see them often,” he promised. “I guess I wasn’t looking hard enough.”</p>
<p>He spoke of a bathroom with white porcelain and white tile and blue pills and an empty orange bottle and a hospital waiting room and his mom hugging him tight.</p>
<p>He spoke of waiting.</p>
<p>And waiting.</p>
<p>And waiting.</p>
<p>He was still waiting when he stole Jack’s future, smiling as he put on the black spade that had never supposed to be his to wear.</p>
<p>Jack’s parents have made their decision now, though, and Kent won’t be waiting for much longer.</p>
<p>“I’d give anything,” he said with a nod as he blinked silent tears out onto his cheeks and rubbed them roughly away with his shirt sleeve. “The Aces. Hockey. I’d take his place in a heartbeat.”</p>
<p>The shopkeeper, who had been listening intently up until now took the moment to ask, “And what is it you wish?”</p>
<p>“I want him to wake up,” Kent said, simple as that. “I want him to have a future.”</p>
<p>“A future…” the man muttered and closed his eyes as he hummed in thought, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned onto the back legs of his chair. “A heavy price, indeed…” he said again, his brows furrowing until they opened into a delighted smile and the front legs of the chair slammed back onto the floor. “But not an impossible one,” he promised.</p>
<p>Kent stared questioningly at the guy going off the rails about magic and wishes again. Sure, it had been nice to vent, to get everything that had been weighing down on his chest, but to keep pushing for some magical solution was starting to get cruel.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to believe me, of course. You can go back out the door and finish your walk.”</p>
<p>Kent narrowed his eyes at the shopkeeper. “You haven’t even told me the cost,” he pointed out.</p>
<p>The shopkeeper’s grin widened almost wolfishly. “You did say you’d give anything,” he pointed out then shrugged. “The cost of Jack Zimmermann’s future, one all his own,” he explained with a sad smile, “is your shared past. You’ll walk out the door and all those memories you shared with me won’t be yours any longer.”</p>
<p>Kent laughed and shook his head. An impossible price for an impossible wish. But it was a siren song. To lose the pain and save his friend’s life. Surely a few good memories were worth it. Surely he’d make friends here. Surely, his heart whispered, Jack would reach back out to him.</p>
<p>“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”</p>
<hr/>
<p>When Jack had been released from the hospital and into a rehab facility, he’d worked a lot with a counselor. There had been a lot of anger and a lot of hurt and it had been directed in almost every direction.</p>
<p>He felt betrayed by hockey, his parents, his own mind and body. The world at large had become an enemy as well as his own teammates. The medicine that was supposed to help him had turned against him. His best friend took first in the draft while he was left to hide and learn how to live and be himself again.</p>
<p>He’d felt, back then, like he’d be untangling everything knotted up in his mind and chest for the rest of his life. In a way, he would be, the experience of his teenage years creeping back up on him alongside his anxiety and whispering failure in the back of his brain. Knots he’d untied years ago would tangle themselves up once more as he learned how to stop it from happening that same way again.</p>
<p>It had been a long time since he’d felt such an ugly squirming in his chest, though. Wounds he thought long-healed suddenly felt fresh and he found others, so many others, he hadn’t even known were there.</p>
<p>“The universe does not like imbalances. Equal payment is a requirement. Unfortunately, you are the only one capable of untangling your own emotions and ones you did not owe ended up in my possession last time. I’ll have to take a slight fee for what parts of the original payment I am returning to you with the overpayment. You’ve come back from worse, though. I’m certain your reputation can take the hit.”</p>
<p>Jack Zimmermann stepped out of the shop to greet the first rays of morning sun. As if it was just regaining service, his phone buzzed with numerous messages and alerts.</p>
<p><em> Sorry </em>, he replied Tater’s concerned questions.</p>
<p><em> I’m safe </em>, he sent to Marty’s pleas for an answer.</p>
<p><em> I understand </em>, he said to his coach’s demand to meet with him as soon as he got back to the hotel. He’d likely be scratched for the next game at minimum.</p>
<p>He ordered an Uber as their replies began to filter in and sat at the curb to wait for its arrival.</p>
<p>“What did I pay for?” Jack had asked at some point during the entire jumbled mess the time in the shop was quickly becoming.</p>
<p>“Can you remember your death?” the shopkeeper had asked him.</p>
<p>“I didn’t die,” Jack had responded. “I woke up.”</p>
<p>The shopkeeper had grinned at him. “This shop grants wishes,” he said softly, “Your own future was not a cheap one to grant, but it was managed by splitting the cost over the both of you.”</p>
<p>In the growing light, Jack’s Uber pulled up in front of him and honked when he didn’t immediately jump in. “No getting sick in my car, dude,” the driver threatened before tapping at his screen and driving off.</p>
<p>“There is more than one way to die,” the shopkeeper had said as Jack walked out the door. “Just as there is more than one way to remember.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>Body memory was an important aspect of athleticism.</p>
<p>Kent Parson’s body knew how to react to a situation oftentimes before his own mind had processed what was happening. It was what stood between a no-contact jersey and a career-ending injury just as much as it stood between a blocked shot and a goal.</p>
<p>Training was literally teaching their bodies how to react in a game. Hockey was a fast-paced sport. No matter how fast your brain, if you depended solely on that, you’d fall behind.</p>
<p>Then again, body memory could be a terrible detriment, as well. A body that had been injured remembered the pain and weakness long after it was gone. An injured knee had to be trained how to bear weight again. An injured hand had to learn to not flinch.</p>
<p>Kent Parson woke up some mornings searching for a body he could never find. He’d smell cologne on a stranger and his heart would pound. Whenever someone brought up his draft day, as much as it was the dream come true, Kent Parson wanted to cry and be sick.</p>
<p>He didn’t know where these injuries came from or how to get rid of them, but his body remembered them all the same.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The Falconers raised the Stanley Cup at the end of the 2016 season.</p>
<p>Jack was the fourth to lift it, wanting to make sure Marty and Thirdy had first shot and Tater, hobbling out onto the ice in his knee brace, got his due, too.</p>
<p>He took pictures with it, with his old Samwell teammates and his parents. Shitty dared Jack and his dad to put him in the cup again, but even with the steel rod in his father’s back, that wasn’t something Bad Bob seemed ready to try.</p>
<p>There were parties and so much alcohol and there was a parade.</p>
<p>It was a high that ran for five days straight before they finally all crashed and sobered up. Jack wasn’t sure everyone had managed that by the time the awards ceremony started three days later and Jack was back in Vegas.</p>
<p>This time, however, he had a plan.</p>
<p>The shopkeeper wouldn’t give him a name or what this other person had also paid to wake Jack back up last time he was here, but, then again, Jack didn’t need more than one chance to guess.</p>
<p><em>“It was like you completely disappeared from his memory,”</em> Scapelli had said in that McDonald’s parking lot.</p>
<p>“There is more than one way to remember,” he told himself as the little bit of heartache and affection he’d recovered alongside his own jealousy and fear curled soft in his chest.</p>
<p>He’d long since learned how to face his emotions and himself. His jealousy and spite of Kenny back then were steeped in his own anxiety and fear of failure. But Jack had hit rock bottom and he’d come back stronger, strong enough to face the media and lift the cup. Jack knew he didn’t need to recover his old love for Kenny to want to be beside his best friend again. He didn’t need Kenny to remember, either. Not when they could make new memories together.</p>
<p>Still, as he unpacked his luggage in his hotel room, Jack pocketed a USB drive and a silver necklace with a metal tag on it just in case.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The NHL Awards were always an event. Kent had been awed the first year, showing up as a rookie to collect his Calder. It wasn’t anything new anymore, but it wasn’t exactly boring, either. He showed up in a new suit with his baby sister on his arm.</p>
<p>“It’s her graduation present,” he joked when the press asked. “She got her bachelors last month.”</p>
<p>He greeted friends from teams all over he hadn’t seen since the last time they’d played. He chatted with retired players he didn’t get to see but once a year if that.</p>
<p>He made sure his notecards where safely tucked in his jacket pocket where sweaty palms from a tux jacket worn in a too warm room with too many bodies wouldn’t smudge the ink. Art Ross was his this year even if Seattle had knocked Vegas out for the cup. He was up for a few other awards, too.</p>
<p>“Jack?”</p>
<p>Kent paused at his sister’s surprise before she ran up to Jack Zimmermann who was smiling and chatting with her like they were old friends.</p>
<p>“I’ll let you two catch up,” she said after Kent had gathered his wits. “You only get to play two games against each other, after all. I’ll see you around, though, right?”</p>
<p>Jack nodded and waved her off as she ran up to the bar.</p>
<p>“How do you know Sam?”</p>
<p>Jack frowned before shaking his shoulders loose. “We were on the same team,” Jack reminded him.</p>
<p>“So, what, the Memmer?” It was the only time Kent remembered his entire family visiting. It had been amazing to have them there when he’d lifted that trophy.</p>
<p>Jack dipped his head. “Then, too.” Then he pulled a hand out of his pocket and a delicate chain with a fake army tag on it swung from his hand.</p>
<p>Kent grabbed onto the tag and frowned in recognition. He still had its pair tucked away in some box or drawer or another, probably. “This is mine?”</p>
<p>“You gave me this the summer I visited you in Albany,” Jack said. “Can we talk?”</p>
<p>There wasn’t the time or space to talk before the awards. Instead, they separated and went to their seats and Kent Parson spent the entire ceremony asking his sister about an entire week of his life he had no memory of.</p>
<p>He had no memory of a lot of things, apparently, as Sam kept talking about Jack and about Jack and Kent and, as her horror grew at how little he remembered, about how much of a mess he was over Jack’s overdose.</p>
<p>How could he not remember any of this? It was like listening to someone else’s life.</p>
<p>At some point in the middle, he gave acceptance speeches for the Art Ross and the King Clancy and wound up splashing cold water in his face in the bathroom.</p>
<p>He should talk to a doctor. Was it that concussion two years ago?</p>
<p>That didn’t seem right.</p>
<p>The bathroom door opened. Jack walked in.</p>
<p>“Why don’t I remember you?”</p>
<p>Jack took a step back, looking ready to run, before squaring his shoulders and nodding. “Not here, though?” he suggested as he looked around the very public bathroom.</p>
<p>Kent thought for a moment then nodded.</p>
<p>“I have a room here,” Jack said as he led them through the Mandalay Bay’s lobby.</p>
<p>In the elevator, Kent sent a text to his sister and to Scraps telling them to stick together and avoid Troy who had decided he was going to fall in love with and hit on Kent’s baby sister when they had met two years ago and had been asking after her regularly ever since.</p>
<p>Jack’s room had a balcony and the night had cooled enough that they took to that instead of the stuffy, air conditioned room, where Jack spun the most bullshit story Kent Parson had ever heard in his life.</p>
<p>“I gave my memories so you would wake up from being brain dead?” he asked in disbelief. “Did I hit my head tonight? Or did you?”</p>
<p>Jack scowled and there was something familiar in the lines of his face. “You don’t have to believe me,” he grumbled.</p>
<p>“Of course I don’t, Zimms!”</p>
<p>Jack blinked and then surprise melted into a shy smile that made Kent’s chest ache. “There’s still a bit of me in there,” he murmured but before Kent could ask him what he meant, he pressed on. “Kenny, do you have any other issues with your memory? Or is it just me? You remember the rest of Rimouski, don’t you? You remember your time at Vegas and before the Q?”</p>
<p>“There’s a lot I don’t remember from the Q,” Kent argued as he thought to Sam’s stories and fuzzy spaces of time in his own head. He thought about the cracks and missing puzzle pieces. “I can’t say it’s just you.”</p>
<p>“Well, we were around each other a lot,” Jack admitted then pulled out a storage drive and held it out between them. “Here,” he said as he shook it, cueing Kent to take it. “Pictures.”</p>
<p>Kent snorted and rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen the pictures. Everyone’s seen the pictures.”</p>
<p>“Not these. These are...personal.” Jack’s words ended in a murmur, just loud enough for Kent to hear if he leaned in just a few more inches, but no less sincere for lack of volume. Instead, it made the whole situation feel more personal and immediate.</p>
<p>He swallowed against his suddenly dry throat. “But why was it my memories?” he asked. He didn’t want to believe it, but something told him this wasn’t the kind of thing Jack Zimmermann would joke about. “And why do you remember?”</p>
<p>Jack wiggled the USB drive again and Kent plucked it from his hand. “Because it was your wish,” he said once it was tucked into Kent’s pants pocket. “Kenny, you saved my life.”</p>
<p>“Besides,” he admitted, “I paid something else.”</p>
<p>Kent frowned. “What?” What had Jack paid for Kent’s own wish? Was it something Kent could offer to regain his memories? If he believed all of this in the first place.</p>
<p>Jack shook his head. “Not important.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean not important?” Kent argued. “Why would you pay for my wish?”</p>
<p>“The guy at the shop said it would’ve been too much for one person,” Jack admitted. “A life carries a heavy cost, both in giving or in taking. Spreading it out over two people who would both want the wish to come true means a lower cost for both of us.”</p>
<p>“You wanted to wake up?”</p>
<p>“Did you think I did it on purpose?”</p>
<p>Kent blinked. “I don’t know what I think. I don’t know why I said that.”</p>
<p>“Kenny,” Jack said as he leaned forward, grabbing onto his hands and holding tight, staring Kent down until he couldn’t look anymore and had to stare at their clasped hands. “I promise, it was an accident. I promise.”</p>
<p>There’s an ache in his chest and a loosening in his shoulders and mind as relief sets in to quell a fear Kent never knew he had. The waterworks start up and he drops his head down to rest his forehead on their hands.</p>
<p>“Zimms?” he asks, breathless, trying and failing to hold back the tears. He can’t explain why the nickname feels right, but it does. His teeth and tongue slips into it without thought.</p>
<p>“Yeah, Kenny?” Jack asks and Kent sits up to face him once again.</p>
<p>Kent’s throat is tight again and his mouth dry. He swallows and considers dropping it, dropping his vision and leaving the questions picking at the back of his eyes and tying strings around his lungs unasked and unanswered. “Why do I get the feeling we weren’t just teammates?” he asks, instead. “Or friends?”</p>
<p>“We can be whatever you want to be this time around.” It’s not an answer, but it tells Kent everything he wanted to know.</p>
<p>“I don’t remember you,” he says through a burning nose and eyes, his hands tightening around Jack’s, his fingers clenching and dragging, grabbing even just a little more at any form of stability.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to,” Jack promised.</p>
<p>“But I should,” Kent pressed forward, holding Jack’s gaze and holding onto the feeling that something about this was right. “I wake up sometimes looking for someone beside me. Your eyes make me feel like I’ve finally found it.”</p>
<p>Jack let out a rush of breath as he leaned in a bit more. Kent leaned in, too, stopping with mere inches between them.</p>
<p>“I don’t remember you, but I do,” he explained. “My head doesn’t, but everything else does. Like skating down the ice and knowing exactly where I need to be for that puck to hit my stick right on the money.”</p>
<p>Jack huffed a laugh and pulled one of his hands away to hide his eyes. Kent wants to take it back. He thinks Jack’s blue eyes get even deeper when he cries. He wants to know if he’s right.</p>
<p>“We were good at hockey, weren’t we?” Kent asked, instead, finally dropping his grip. “I know we set and broke records, but, like. We were good together.”</p>
<p>Jack nodded and Kent grinned to himself as another realization settled on his shoulders.</p>
<p>“We’re gonna kiss now, aren’t we?” he asks, his heart thundering against his ribs.</p>
<p>“We don’t have to,” Jack replies, but he’s still leaning in just like Kent has been, speaking in whispers and long looks.</p>
<p>Kent shakes his head and leans in until his lips are inches from Jack’s. “But we’re going to.”</p>
<p>Jack smirks. “Yeah.”</p>
<p>He leans in the rest of the way.</p>
<hr/>
<p>There is a shop in Las Vegas that only those who need it can find. There is a bright neon palm reading sign that never turns off in the window and antiques and knick knacks spill out from shelves and cabinets inside.</p>
<p>There’s a bell that rings when the door opens that summons a shopkeeper with a warm smile and a friendly voice.</p>
<p>This is a shop that grants wishes, great and small—conscious and unconscious desires—so long as customers are willing and able to pay an equal price. But, not everyone with a wish needs the shopkeeper’s help.</p>
<p>A man who died meets one who forgot at center ice for puck drop.</p>
<p>When everything you loved becomes everything you lost, the next step is, quite simply, to fall in love again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much, Faia, for giving me the opportunity to write a xxxHOLiC AU. It's mixing two of my favorite fandoms into one and I hope I did each justice!</p>
<p>Thank you, as well, to my beta reader, Anna, without whom I and this fic would be far too unworthy. Bless you, hon!</p>
<p>And thank you, again, to our wonderful event mods for putting this all together, as well as Ngozi Ukazu and CLAMP for giving me the playgrounds I combined for this fic.</p>
<p>To all readers: I hope you enjoy! Don't forget to show Faia some love for her AMAZING art.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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